In the early 1990s, D. E. Rose, having spent a substantial career involving student transportation, observed the statistics that from 1951-1990, in the State of Ohio alone, over forty students were killed in accidents associated with school bus transportation. An appreciable number of these fatalities resulted from children wondering into the path of the bus as it departed from the drop site. A small child, even when crossing directly in front of the bus, may be obscured from the view of the driver who must also be attuned to approaching traffic as well as to disembarking children. Complicating the problem is the tendency of children to dawdle around the bus or to chase papers and the like underneath the bus rather than to proceed directly out of harm's way upon disembarking. Tragically, a disembarked child who has strayed too near the bus, his/her attention directed elsewhere, may be unaware of the danger engendered by the departure of the bus until it is too late for either the driver or the child to avoid a serious accident.
To militate against accidents caused by oncoming traffic and the like, many school buses have been equipped with various safety devices. School buses commonly employ red and amber signal lamps and a stop arm to alert traffic of an impending stop. In operation, with the entrance door closed, the driver actuates a manual switch to activate the flashing of the amber signal lamps to indicate the stopping of the bus. When the entrance door is moved toward the open position, the amber warning lights are deactivated and the red warning lights are actuated to indicate that children are departing from the bus. Concomitantly, a stop arm is extended to reveal additional flashing red lights as well as a stop sign configured in the symbolic shape of an octagon. Additionally, a crossing arm may be extended to force the passengers to cross the street well in front of the bus. When the entrance door is closed, all the lights are deactivated and the stop arm retracts automatically. School buses also are typically equipped with an audible electrical warning device that is actuated when the bus is in reverse gear. An audible warning signal is maintained as long as the bus is in reverse gear.
In about 1992, Rose sought to further improve student disembarking safety by providing an audibly perceptible alarm or warning cue and timing approach which responded to the opening of the bus door and remained activated for a selected time interval. Described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,293,151, issued Mar. 8, 1994, the improved safety approach was adopted by many school authorities. Later, in 2000, the departure alarm or warning cue was provided, inter alia, as a short voice message.
As many adults are aware, children of young age extending to young people in their early twenties, tend on many occasions to be impulsive, not immediately contemplating a potentially dangerous physical situation. Concerning such mental responses, investigators have long determined that different areas of the human brain develop in various ways at different rates into early childhood. However, recent imaging studies of children conducted over a period of years at UCLA and the National Institute of Mental Health in Bethesda, Md., have and are now developing a substantial body of information related to brain development, for instance, a second growth spurt in gray matter occurs just before puberty. This is followed by a thinning of such matter, the initial brain areas to mature being involved in basic functions such as sensory processing and movement, followed by regions governing special orientation and language (parietal lobe).
The last area of the brain to reach maturity is the prefrontal cortex, where the so-called executive brain resides involving social judgments, the weighing of alternatives, future planning and, importantly, holding behavior in check. This executive brain reaches maturity at about age twenty-five. It follows that young children as well as teenagers often appear to lack good judgment or the ability to restrain impulses. One neuro-imaging investigator has noted:                We can vote at eighteen and drive a car. But you can't rent a car until you're twenty-five. In terms of brain anatomy, the only ones who have it right are the car rental people.        See generally:        National Geographic Magazine, March, 2005, pp 6-13.        Gogtay et al., “Dynamic mapping of human cortical development during childhood through early adulthood” Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA vol. 101, no. 21, pp 8174-8179 (2004).        “Lack of brain maturity may explain teen crash rate” The Washington Post, Feb. 1, 2005.        
In view of the foregoing, safety improvements with respect to the on-loading and off-loading of young bus passengers may be realized by supplementing the function of the immature prefrontal cortex.